


explosion

by kidlightnings (revolver)



Series: Whumptober 2019 [2]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 13:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20875322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolver/pseuds/kidlightnings
Summary: Ky still struggles to keep fire under control. Asra does what he can with the aftermath.





	explosion

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 02 - Explosion for [Whumptober 2019](https://whumptober2019.tumblr.com/post/187356400823/october-approaches-and-so-does-whumptober-2019)  
Apprentice Ky details can be found [here](https://kidlightnings.tumblr.com/tagged/apprentice-ky) if desired!

Flame was not Ky's element of choice, but a skilled magician could use any element to some extent.

She twisted her hands in the air, drew in more and more. She held the fireball heavily aloft, clenched her fingers to bring it together tighter, hotter.

It was with a pleased exhale that it drifted lazily to hover above her palm, her skin still cool but for exertion, sweat evaporating in the light breeze. Once it was in proximity to her hand, she whorled it around and through the air, as though fastened to her palm. She snapped it to the other hand, burning brightly, yet causing her no harm. It circled her in a languid trail, then lengthened into a wisp.

Ky swayed against it, started to twist through the open spaces in the courtyard. Flame ringed her, reformed into spheres that orbited in time with her easy dance.

“Ky?” Called Asra's voice, soft as not to startle her, but as wrapped up as she was, she lost hold on them, and they rocketed into the ground.

Cobblestones splintered, cracked, and she didn't know what happened next.

Ky came to in brief flashes. She felt drunk. The disorientation reeled her to and from consciousness. Her ears rang.

She could hear soft pleading to  _ wake up _ .

It was in a sudden gasp that she rushed up, snapping awake, and the weakness that overcame her had her nearly collapse back down but for arms gentle around her, tugging her in.

“Ky,” Asra's voice whispered, and she could feel warmth at the crown of her head. He nosed into her hair. “Love, love, are you all right?” he asked. His voice teetered on frantic.

Ky listed in his arms, breathed. “Ok- I think I'm ok,” she murmured. Her ears still rang, and she could smell smoke, feel pricks in the skin of her legs. “Bad- is it bad?”

Asra shifted to look her in the eye. His were worried, and red. “No- it's nothing we can't fix.”

Her voice was uncertain. “How bad?”

“Not- not really- ah- we lost some-” and he looked away awkwardly, “your flowers..”

Ky sighed, as it floated around her head, not exactly settling in.

Asra pieced together her distant expression. “Let's talk about it later. Are you thirsty? I made some tea for when you woke up.”

His words almost didn’t make sense to her confused consciousness, but his tone did. His tone lulled her into a calm, and as he guided her hand to hold the cup, she knew what to do with it, and sipped slowly.

He rubbed her back, stopping just short of an ache at the base of her neck that rose into the back of her head. It felt like a hard throb, and she felt a little whimper pass from between her lips unbidden.

“It hurts?” Asra asked, though already gliding his hand up to hover over it, and she felt the skin cool, starting from the surface, then deeper.

She managed a nod, sucked in air through her teeth.

“Y-yeah.”

Ky wasn’t accustomed to being carried, but the tea was taken from her hands after she drained the cup, and set aside, and she gave a little gasp as she felt herself lifted from what she realized to be the floor. Downstairs. Oh. She was idly aware of being carried  _ up _ .

“I didn’t want to move you too much until you were awake,” Asra explained as she rested her head against his shoulder.

“T-thanks?” she responded, as his words slid against each other, finally coming to some sort of sense.

As he finally crested the stairs, what had felt like years of walking, he crossed to their shared bed, set her down slow, easy. Everything tilted for her, and she gripped onto his shirt.

“Too fast?” he asked, not moving away.

“Haa,” she started, “everything,  _ really _ difficult.”

He didn’t let her go, instead, slid in behind her, and guided her back against himself, enfolding her in his arms.

“So.. I’ve got to keep you awake a while,” he murmured, “but we probably shouldn’t get you up a while until you’ve got your bearings..”

Ky sighed, turning her head slowly to rest her cheek against his arm. “Would really like to sleep.”

“Love, what can I do to keep you awake?”

Ky didn’t answer for a long while as she dug through her thoughts. “Can you.. Read to me?” she asked, at last.

Asra made a soft  _ hmm _ sound. “Worth a try, but you have to tell me if you’re about to drift off?”

“I’ll- do my best.”

Ky could feel the slight shift as Asra reached to their bedside table and pulled the topmost book from it. She didn’t know if it was better or worse that it was one of her old, marked up handbooks. Neither of them knew where it had come from - she’d never told him, before, and he’d never asked.

“Your handwriting is so different now,” he said, voice fond.

And then, he didn’t so much read, as talk her through a ritual, the steps of which lingered just outside of her memory, as though she was reaching for a leaf in the water that kept floating away.

The words coalesced more strongly as she recalled, and her head slowly cleared. The subject matter, a spell to encourage blooms, off-season, made her bite her lip.

“Please,” she said, softly, “I want to see how bad it is.”

Asra’s chest rose against her back. “It’s- it’s not that bad, I know you’ll be able to bring them back.”

Still, she uncertainty in his tone made her feel more desperate.

“Do- do you think I shouldn’t, yet?”

“I- I don’t want you to worry about that, right now- but if you really want to-”

Ky wrestled with the tangle of impulses in her head, muddled with the lapping waves of pain.

“Ok,” she finally said, settled back into him.

“Here, maybe something… lighter,” he chuckled, flipping through until he found a page that drew his interest. “No notes or marks on the page - suppose you really weren’t one for love potions, back then.”

Despite the pain, Ky did find herself laughing softly at the idea of the person she’d heard tales of brewing a love potion. “I don’t exactly need any now, now do I?”

Asra nuzzled his cheek against hers. “Or, perhaps, this whole time, I’ve been under one? It’s how you make me feel.”

Ky turned a deep red, despite herself, despite the ache that pervaded her head. And she kept laughing. “S-stop- it hurts! Y-you can’t just say things like that!”

He pulled her close, buried his nose into the curve of her neck, setting the book aside. “No- not if it’s going to hurt that pretty head, love, I’m sorry, but, it’s true!”

“You’re- ahh- you’re the worst,” she said, voice steadying, but playful. “But let’s hear it, how would I make the next batch of potion to put into your tea?”

Asra pulled one hand from her to flip the book back over, scan for where the line began.

“Let’s see… you’d need a white or pink candle- white if you want a pure love, and pink if you’d like-  _ ohh _ , something more..  _ Sensual _ .”

At the words, she could feel his fingers stroke gently against the skin over her ribs through fabric. The hand stayed its place, but it still heated her skin, sent a flush to her cheeks, almost dizzying with her still recovering.

“What else?” she asked.

“Two red roses - in bloom if it’s someone you know well, or buds if someone you want to know better, or don’t know at all.. Lace and ribbon… a pearl, and a bundle of evergreen needles.”

Ky let her eyes slipped closed, but then snapped them back open in remembrance.

“What would I need to do with it all?”

Asra set the book aside, used that hand now to cup the back of her head again, let the cooling sensation spread deep into what felt like the bone. Ky exhaled softly, a little moan of relief.

“You’d take the lace, and wrap the roses together, tie the wrapping with the ribbon. You’d light the candle, and seal the tie with the candle’s wax. Leave the roses bound together on a windowsill for one night, and in the morning, you’d make a tea of the petals and the evergreen and a scrap of the lace that was untouched by the wax. And.. it seems it wouldn’t be  _ my _ tea, but yours. Then you would seek out that person before sundown, present them with a single white rose, and they would fall desperately in love with you…”

The little  _ hmm _ , flirtatious and light, that she made was plenty information as to what she thought of it.

“Then, you’d be none the wiser, wouldn’t you?”

Asra’s fingers skimmed across her ribs to come to rest on her stomach. “No, ah, how terrible, to be bespelled by you. Bewitching. Oh, love, you don’t have to resort to things like that to win my affections.”

The flowers were forgotten for that while as she lay in his arms.

“More tea? And then perhaps we can find other ways you’ve been enchanting me,” he teased.

Ky was loathe to shift off of him, but did, slowly, gingerly.

A warm cup of tea in hand, and she felt more than ready to be enchanted. The flowers could wait.


End file.
